It's official--this has been a mild winter!

Decorah weather statistician Richard Bernatz has confirmed what we have all suspected--the winter of 2019-2020 has been a mild one.

Bernatz has developed a "Winter Severity Index" which uses 15 weighted measures to compare winters over the past 127 years.

Of those 15 measures, only days with measurable snowfall (19, versus an average of 16); total snowfall (29.90 inches versus 29.19 inches on average); and length of days between first and last snowfall (105 days, versus 91 days on average) have been slightly more severe this winter.

But the biggest factor making this a mild winter has been the temperatures.  There have been only three days with a high less than 20 degrees this winter--the average is 20 days.  Only seven days have had low temperatures below zero--the average is 23 days.

When Bernatz calculates all 15 measures, he says the 2019-2020 November through February statistics rank this winter 97th out of 127 years for which weather records have been kept in Decorah.